Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs
Project PHAETON
Chapter 3
-VB-
“Captain. It actually is a Phaeton squadron, sir.”
Garma Zabi frowned from his seat aboard the command ship of the Musai light cruiser naval squadron. Aside from the Musai light cruiser he was aboard, there were three more Musai light cruisers, two Koban-class destroyers, and three additional Tetra-class corvettes.
Though their target and the interloper were a hundred of kilometers away, the high resolution cameras and additional sensors showed the Phaeton naval squadron as if they were no more than five kilometers away.
“... That’s a Crown-class battlecarrier,” someone noted.
Garma turned to look at the officer. “Explain,” he demanded of her.
The officer saluted crisply. “Yes, captain. Zeon Intelligence Bureau’s latest report stated that the Phaetonites have their comparison to our Musai-class light cruisers. Unlike the Musai, the Crown battlecarriers are lightly armed but more heavily armored. Their bays are smaller and not meant for mobile suits; those bays are all meant for unmanned space fighter crafts, which number in the hundreds with enough armor to anything but a sustained direct shot from one of the Zakus. The problem, however, is their speed.”
“Speed? How fast could they be?”
The officer gulped.
“What is their speed?” Garma demanded with narrowed eyes as the bridge all looked to the officer.
“... Our latest experimental Zakus are capable of 0.8 Gs of acceleration. Their drone fighters, the X-7 and X-8 Ghosts, are each capable of hitting close to 10G and 11G in space, respectively.”
Garma paused. “... Over fifteen times our best mobile suit’s acceleration? What about our fighters?”
There was a wing of Gobbles on the Musai.
The officer struggled to answer honestly but a glare from Garma made sure she answered honestly. “The Gobbles were … never meant for direct fighter-to-fighter combat. It is best used in atmosphere than space, but even then, its theoretical maximum falls short of the X-7 Ghost’s recorded cruising speed. Its acceleration maxes out at 1.77G’s, captain.”
He stared at her for a second before looking away and dismissing her with a wave of his hand. He didn’t care about how she sat down while sighing out in relief. As if he was going to kill her for giving him an answer that displeased him. As if! He was not like any of his brothers and sisters. Wasting a valuable officer’s life over something like words was impractical and unacceptable. Perhaps over failures but words that he requested?
Ugh. Sometimes, he hated his family.
… Focus, Garma. Focus on the situation in front of yourself.
Fact one, the Phaeton League had appeared out of nowhere and demanded that he stop chasing the dissidents.
Fact two, his squadron outnumbered theirs.
Fact three, the Crown battlecarrier supposedly fielded “hundreds” of X-7 and X-8 Ghost drone fighters. He had only heard about the X-7 before, so the existence of the X-8 was … troubling. And these X-7’s and X-8’s were supposedly superior fighters to Gobbles.
Fact four, each of his Musai-class light cruisers carried with them a wing of Gobbles and a squad (5) of Zaku I’s.
Question one, how many hundreds was it? Or was it a hundred plus something?
Question two, could four squadrons of Zaku’s and four wings of Gobbles be able to defeat “hundreds” of their fighters?
… Ah, he forgot to ask.
“Officer… you. Yes, you,” he sighed as he pointed to the same officer as before, and she quickly stood back up and stood at attention. “What are the armaments of those drone fighters?”
“Sir! The X-7 Ghost field two guided rocket launchers and two light lasers. The X-8 has four guided rocket launchers and two light lasers.”
Garma clicked his tongue.
So even if their Zakus had superior technology (which he knew they did not), his squadron would still be outgunned. The volume of fire alone would overwhelm them, even if each and every single man and woman serving underneath him were worth two of theirs.
“... Major Simmons.”
The political officer stepped up. “Yes, my lord?”
“What are your thoughts about the Phaetonians? Do you think they will fire on us?”
“... Not if we reach the dissidents first, sir. But they will shoot if they reach the dissidents and we fire on the dissidents,” the glasses wearing officer with very short hair replied.
“And if we were to get into a skirmish with them?” Garma asked pointedly.
The bridge seemed to pause.
The political officer hummed. “Then you would prove to all of Zeon that we were right from the start. We have been targeted by the corrupt Federation and the meddling Phaetonians.”
“I see. You may step back.”
The major bowed lightly as he did so.
“... Continue to chase after the dissidents until they are within fifty clicks of the Phaetonians. If we aren’t closer by then, disengage by firing reverse thrusters.”
Considering the principality’s plans for the Federation, Garma didn’t want to be the one to earn the League’s ire at this crucial junction of preparation.
“And open communication with the Phaetonians.”
---
Major Benjamin Simmons hummed as he watched the youngest son of the Zabi family make his decision.
He happened to disagree with that decision.
The Phaetonians could not be stronger than the Principality because they, the people of Zeon, have been preparing themselves for war while they, the cold and fractious Phaetonians, those who left the Jupiter Fleet and made their home in the Asteroid Belt less than two decades ago, could not logically and logistically be more powerful than Zeon’s glorious navy.
And the man who made Phaeton as they were wasn’t here.
Lord Garma’s cautiousness was … a product of fear. Major Simmons understood that.
Prince Zabi feared Zeyus Caelum, the Astral Polymath.
This was something that no political officer or politician would ever say out loud. Not unless they wanted themselves and their families to disappear mysteriously.
But it was known.
It wasn’t a secret.
And Lord Garma, the youngest son of Prince Zabi, inherited some of that fear. Unlike his father, Lord Garma didn’t fear the Phaetonians.
But cautiousness was not acceptable.
Not when this was the greatest chance Zeon had at getting its hands on Phaetonian technology.
So he did what he had to do.
He took a step back from the rest of the bridge. Stood by himself to “observe” the situation and pulled up his own communicator.
“Agent O2, report.”
“{... Orange 2 reports to O1. Orders?}”
“Convince the good captain of the Nozara to fake damage on his cruiser and then fire ‘back’ at the aggressors.”
“{Understood.}”
---
Noctis frowned as he listened to Lord Garma Zabi’s reply to his demands.
“We are pursuing criminals who have caused instability in our principality. This is an internal matter, and the Phaetonians have no standing here. It is you who must step back, or do the Clans of the Phaeton League harbor criminals from other nations?” Garma accused while glaring at him.
He stood in front of the captain’s seat with a low hum.
“You mean political dissidents?” Noctis asked, flatly ignoring the polite cover the two nations kept. “The ones that our intelligence agents identified as having had ties to the founder of your nation, Zeon Deikun, but not with your father, Lord Garma? The people who, as our agents have noted, have literally done nothing except raise their concern about the political purges and military build-up?”
“Speaking out against the stated policies of the principality and urging others to follow their lead is a crime.”
“Geez, man,” Noctis drawled. “I didn’t know that Zeonites were more authoritarian than the Nazis and Soviets combined. Did any of you know?” he asked playfully around the bridge, and got a smattering of laughter.
“Are you accusing of -?”
“It’s not an accusation when everyone everywhere in the Solar System have evidence of your war crimes and crimes against humanity, Lord Garma -.”
BEEEEEPPPP.
What the hell?
Noctis’s eyes snapped down towards the source of the noise.
“Intense thermal signature from one of the Zeonite light cruisers, general!” the sensor officer reported.
Then Garma’s face on the screen reddened. “You tricked us! You engaged me in dialogue and attacked us while we were talking!”
“No, we did no- And he cut comms,” Noctis muttered as his heart pounded. “Did we shoot? Did any of our ships attack?”
“No, sir. Everyone is reporting that their guns are cold and fighters undeployed,” the comms officers quickly replied. “We -.”
“Fighter launch detected!” the sensor officer shouted. “Multiple fighters! Those -. What is that? Did they launch entire gunships from their light cruisers or something?”
“On screen!” he ordered before he quickly sat back down on his command chair. Once he did, he opened the command channel for all of the other captains and commanders to listen. “This is General Noctis Caelum. Zeonites are launching fighters. Launch all of your fighters and get into a screening formation. Prepare for combat.”
---
“Phaetonians can’t be trusted,” Major Simmons spoke up as he stepped up to the lord’s side. “Look at what they did to us because of your cautiousness. We should have struck first.”
Garma ignored the man. “Give me status on the Nozara!” he ordered instead.
“{We are still combat capable, Lord Garma,}” the captain of the Nozara Deimel Gunza reported. “{I had the Zakus deployed just in case. Please forgive me for revealing our hand.}”
“No, it is not your fault. It’s the Phaetonian’s!” Garma objected with a snarl. “Third Squadron, deploy all Zakus! We are going to battle!”
As the Zakus were deployed, Garma found an answer to one of his earlier questions. The sensors weren’t showing hundreds of fighters, just something close to a hundred thirty.
That was … not a bad odd for him and his squadron.
Then one of the sensor officers spoke up. “OpFor deploying fighters and -. Odd signature. Bringing it up now.”
The main screen on the bridge quickly blinked to a different view and showed something none of them had been expecting among the drone fighters.
Too bulky to be a fighter. Not bulky enough to be a bomber. Too big to be a fighter. Too small to be a shuttle.
---
Unlike their squadron, the Zeonites did not produce massive numbers of fighters. Instead, they deployed their hidden weapons: the Zakus.
‘This is the first time they are seen by anyone other than a Zeonite,’ Noctis thought.
He knew their specs. Both the League intelligence and House Caelum’s private intelligence agencies made sure his family knew of the principality’s new weapon.
There were parts here and there that the League did not have access to that made the mobile suit possible for Zeon… and if this truly did break out into a fight, Noctis would eagerly take a few samples for his father’s research teams to study.
“Musai particle guns are heating up!”
But if the Zakus were the principality’s hidden ace, then this was the League’s ace. One that was made with the same principle and method as the barrier that kept Ceres safe.
“Shields up, front and center!” he ordered.
And a crackling energy barrier spewed out from the front of the ship’s shield emitters to form a circular barrier just wide enough to cover the battlecarrier’s front.
“They’re firing!”
“What are they aiming at?!”
A streak of light cut across the emptiness of space and -.
Struck.
---
“Unknown EM signature emitting from the front of the Phaetonian battlecarrier!”
Garma leaned forward just as his light cruisers all opened fire in a bid to cripple the battlecarrier.
All of them hissed across space and -.
His high focus cameras showed everyone on the bridge something happening in front of the battlecarrier. Some kind of … blue light? No, it was transparent and not directed at them.
Struck.
The particle cannon’s beams struck the circular blue light and … dissipated.
No damage.
His stomach dropped. “What?”
---
The battlecarrier did not even shake a little as the shot from the light cruiser’s particle cannon struck the energy shield.
“All fighters and mobile armors are to engage the enemy. Focus on Target A1, A2, A3, and A4. Fight to disable! I want their fighters disabled as well!
---
“My lord, their fighters approach!”
“Fight to disable their fighters! I want a specimen for our researchers to reverse engineer!”
-VB-
A/N: and thus, the first skirmish between the Phaeton League and the Principality of Zeon breaks out.